The Internet and World-Wide-Web have changed the way organizations conduct business. Virtually every organization has a web-site that provides information about the organization and a description of the goods and/or services an organization may offer. As is known in the art, a “web-site” is group of related mark-up language documents and associated graphics and multi-media files, scripts, and databases, etc. that are served up by a server on the World-Wide-Web via the Internet. Business organizations also provide an electronic commerce (e-commerce) interface that allows users to purchase goods and/or services from such organizations.
There are many different type of web-sites on a spectrum ranging from very simple to very complex. Designing, implementing and deploying a web-site requires knowledge of markup languages such as Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML), eXtensible Markup Language (XML), programming languages such as JAVA, C++, C#, computer graphics functionality, multi-media functionality, etc. A knowledge of communications protocols such as Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP), Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), Internet Protocol (IP), e-mail protocols such as Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), e-commerce protocols, encryption and other security protocols and many other types of protocols for various kinds of web functionalities.
Commercial web-sites offer many different types of electronic advertisements. The advertisements typically include electronic links to advertiser's web-sites. There are many problems associated with designing, implementing and deploying advertising on a web-site.
Another problem is that many types of online advertising are considered spam. Another problem is that pop-up advertising is being block by operating systems such as Windows XP and add-on software. This pop-up blocking is becoming a standard feature in many operating systems. Another problem is that banner ads and pay-per-click ads are no longer an effective means of advertising online.
Electronic mail (e-mail) is one of the most common types of electronic information sent and received. E-mail is sent and received over public networks such as the Internet, and many private networks such as intranets, local area networks (LAN), etc.
Advertisers and other information providers are always looking for new ways to use existing technologies such as e-mail for advertising. There are many free e-mail services that routinely add advertising to user's e-mail as a condition of providing free e-mail. However, there is no easy way to add advertising to e-mail. In addition, general e-mail advertising is often considered spam.
One attempt to solve these problems is “Gmail” provided by Google. Gmail includes a web-interface that displays e-mail. Electronic advertising is displayed on the web-interface that corresponds in part to content of the e-mail.
This it is desirable to use e-mail and other types of electronic information messages for providing advertising and other types of electronic information.